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LONDON - Russia has opened another front in its international show of muscle by dispatching a strategic bomber to the heart of American military power in the Pacific for the first time since the end of the Cold War.
The 5149km flight to Guam, where more than 22,000 American troops are involved in exercises off the island, was carried out by two Russian Tu-95 bombers, a senior air force general announced.
Major General Pavel Androsov said that when US jets were scrambled, the Russian and American pilots "exchanged smiles."
"Whenever we saw US planes during our flights over the ocean, we greeted them," he said.
"On Wednesday, we renewed the tradition when our young pilots flew by Guam in two planes. We exchanged smiles with our counterparts who flew up from a US carrier and returned home."
The sortie by the long-range bombers was part of war games being staged in the Russian Far East.
It was the third highly symbolic incident within a week during which the might of a resurgent Russia has been on display.
First came the flag brazenly planted on the Arctic ocean bed on 2 August in support of Russian territorial claims.
"The Cold War has come to the North," read the headline in the Russian newspaper Kommersant over the weekend, after Canada and other countries with claims to the underwater Arctic mineral wealth stepped up their own preparations.
On Tuesday, the pro-western former Soviet republic of Georgia accused a Russian fighter jet of violating its airspace and firing a missile onto its territory on Monday night, just outside the breakaway region of South Ossetia.
While western analysts play down talk of a new Cold War, Lieutenant-General Igor Khvorov, air forces chief of staff, said the West would have to come to terms with Russia asserting its geopolitical presence.
"I don't see anything unusual, this is business as usual," he said, referring to Wednesday's flight to Guam by the Russian bombers.
Georgia is demanding an emergency meeting of the UN security council over what Tbilisi called an 'act of aggression".
The rocket did not explode and landed harmlessly in a field.
Russia denies having had any aircraft in the area and accused the Georgians of firing the missile against themselves.
Yesterday, the spat intensified as Gen.
Yuri Baluyevsky, the head of Russia's military General Staff, said that Georgia had dreamed up the incident to foment tensions with Russia.
"I'm simply convinced that it was a provocation by Georgia ... This is a provocation against the Russian peacekeepers. This was a provocation against Russia as a whole," said General Baluyevsky.
A Georgian official dismissed General Baluyevsky's comment as "sheer nonsense." The US administration has warned against escalating the rhetoric after the incident, but in diplomatic language expressed support for Georgia.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States "condemns the August 6 rocket attack against Georgia".
"We praise Georgia's continuing restraint in the face of this air attack and call for the urgent clarification of the facts surrounding this incident," he said.
The 15-member UN security council yesterday held an initial exchange on how to deal with the issue, but "the Russians don't want an early discussion," said one UN diplomat.
Georgia claims to have radar records from both its civilian and military air traffic controllers clearly tracking an aircraft entering from Russia, flying to the area of the missile strike, then returning to Russia by the same route.
The Georgians identified the fighter as a Russian Su-24 jet which dropped a Russian-made Raduga KH-58 missile, designed to hit radars.
Georgia has also released audio recordings and an air traffic control transcript.
The New York Times reported that a Georgian controller was talking to a Russian counterpart about an unscheduled flight along the border on his screen.
The Russian controller checked with his supervisor.
He then told the Georgian controller that no planes were flying.
"Our bosses said that nobody is there, neither by plan nor in reality," the Russian said.
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